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Tuesday, March 10, 2009

A Reality Check for Nancy Pelosi.

Is the Air Force an on-call airline for personal use by Nancy Pelosi?

Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, has obtained documents from the Department of Defense (D.O.D.) through the Freedom of Information Act. These documents include email correspondence by the DOD staff to accommodate Nancy Pelosi's repeated requests for military travel, as well as cancellations and changes that happened at the last minute.

Essentially, Pelosi was reserving planes, placed on stand-by every weekend and then cancelling them, oftentimes at the last minute.

One DOD official complained about the "hidden costs" associated with the speaker's last minute changes and cancellations. "We have...folks prepping the jets and crews driving in (not a short drive for some), cooking meals and preflighting the jets etc."

The documents also detail correspondence from intermediaries for Speaker Pelosi issuing demands for certain aircraft and expressing outrage when requested military planes were not available. "It is my understanding there are no G5s available for the House during the Memorial Day recess. This is totally unacceptable...The speaker will want to know where the planes are..." wrote Kay King, Director of the House Office of Interparliamentary Affairs. In a separate email, when told a certain type of aircraft would not be available, King writes, "This is not good news, and we will have some very disappointed folks, as well as a very upset [s]peaker."

Now, since Nancy Pelosi is two heartbeats away from the Presidency of the United States of America, the American people do not want to see her without the proper protection in her transportation needs. However, we do not want to see taxpayer dollars wasted and the system abused by someone in Washington.

Again, this is an instance in which one of our Washington law makers is living in the reality that we are working for them, not the other way around.